Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.

Getting ready for that last Sierra trip this last weekend,Drinking a little wine with Russ, gear all spread out - dreaming,More gear examined/decisions...Plastic storage bins full of crap - old Mountain House meals - took a 4-man Beef Stew.

I could list all the items I did not put in my SAR pack yesterday. Good thing we did not have a surprise pack check, and focused on low angle training. It would have been rather embarrassing to show up without a radio, or food, or the rain gear.

markskor wrote:Getting ready for that last Sierra trip this last weekend,Drinking a little wine with Russ, gear all spread out - dreaming,More gear examined/decisions...Plastic storage bins full of crap - old Mountain House meals - took a 4-man Beef Stew.

Um, my bags/stuff sacks are color coded.. And your food is beyond the date of exipration.. That 4 man beef stew has almost as many trail miles as you do.. And your stove fuel? well.. at least it was still a good trip and no one had to press a SPOT device or go home skunked.

The lesson is.. Organize, check, reorganize, recheck.

In the end, we were fine and you weren't cold.. Might be different if we were still up there today.

Like everyone else (I'm sure), I have a check list: Spring, Summer, Fall (I don't do Winter anymore) - periodically adjusted for new gear additions, and culling out old gear. I go through all my food - in storage bins - every spring. And color coded stuff sacks (for the most part). But no matter what, I still have the occasional beating my head on a rock situation.A couple of years ago, the husband got into my stuff. He crammed 2, 3/4 length thermarests into one stuff sack, that looked the same as the one I usually take out on my trips. I didn't check before I left. The road to hel! is paved with assumptions.Imagine my surprise on a 2 week trip when on the first night I pulled those dam@ things out at bed time.

"Some places remain unknown because no one has ventured forth. Others remain so because no one has ever come back."